Civil Society Space Creating and Maintaining, in Law and in Practice, a Safe and Enabling Environment

A/HRC/RES/24/21View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2013.

What subjects does this mandate have?

3 subjects

Civil Society Conferences Human Rights Advancement

What’s in this document?

9 operative paragraphs

Reminds States of their obligation to respect and fully protect the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of all individuals, inter alia the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and to assemble peacefully and associate freely, online as well as offline, including for persons espousing minority or dissenting views or beliefs, and that respect for all such rights, in relation to civil society, contributes to addressing and resolving challenges and issues that are important to society, such as addressing financial and economic crises, responding to humanitarian crises, including armed conflict, promoting the rule of law and accountability, achieving transitional justice goals, protecting the environment, realizing the right to development, empowering persons belonging to minorities and vulnerable groups, combating racism and racial discrimination, supporting crime prevention, promoting corporate social responsibility and accountability, combating human trafficking, empowering women and youth, advancing social justice and consumer protection, and the realization of all human rights;

Urges States to create and maintain, in law and in practice, a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate free from hindrance and insecurity;

Also urges States to acknowledge publicly the important and legitimate role of civil society in the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and to engage with civil society to enable it to participate in the public debate on decisions that would contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights and the rule of law, and of any other relevant decisions;

Urges all non-State actors to respect all human rights and not to undermine the capacity of civil society to operate free from hindrance and insecurity;

Emphasizes the essential role of civil society in subregional, regional and international organizations, including in support of the organizations’ work, and in sharing experience and expertise through participation in meetings in accordance with relevant rules and modalities and, in this regard, reaffirms the right of everyone, individually and in association with others, to unhindered access to and communication with subregional, regional and international bodies, in particular the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms;

Encourages human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, as appropriate, in the framework of their existing mandates, to continue to address relevant aspects of civil society space;

Welcomes the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to promote and protect civil society space, and invites it to continue efforts in this regard;

Decides to organize, at its twenty-fifth session, a panel discussion on the importance of the promotion and protection of civil society space, which will, inter alia, contribute to the identification of challenges facing States in their efforts to ensure space for civil society and lessons learned and good practices in this regard, and invites the Office of the High Commissioner to liaise with States, relevant United Nations bodies and agencies, relevant special procedures, civil society and other stakeholders with a view to ensuring their participation in the panel discussion;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare a summary report on the panel discussion, to be presented to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-seventh session.

  The resolutions and decisions adopted by the Human Rights Council will be contained in the report of the Council on its twenty-fourth session (A/HRC/24/2), Part One.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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